Reid Hoffman | Honoring the Alliance During Covid

Hello, it's Chris Yeh and I am here today with my co author and friend Reid Hoffman. Sadly, our third co author for our book the Alliance, Ben Casnoca, could not be on the line today, but we are going to spend a lot of time talking about the Alliance. The alliance, of course, is the New York Times bestseller that we published back in 2014 that talks about how managers and employees can build better relationships based on mutual trust, investment and understanding. The core of the alliance, of course, is the notion of a tour of duty where both the manager and employee can be honest with each other, where they can define a specific mission that the employee is trying to accomplish and what that employee is going to get out of the accomplishment of that mission. Because the most important thing for attracting employees in today's environment is, is the ability to drive their career progression. But of course, we aren't in a very typical environment. We're in the middle of a COVID 19 pandemic. We're recording this in the middle of May and it's the biggest shock that any of us have ever experienced. 36 million people have filed unemployment claims and this is placing an enormous strain on the relationships between employers and employees. And so I guess, Reid, the question is, what kind of guidance can the alliance offer to managers and leaders whose business has been decimated by this pandemic, especially in industries like restaurants and travel. What should they be doing differently now to really honor their alliance with their employees?

The alliance says, look, the world's changed. The lifetime employment where an employee works for one institution, one organization for their entire career is now the rare exception versus the norm. Because when you went back even all the way to medieval times and so forth, it was almost like you pledged fail to with that organization the entire time. And then Even in the 50s, the viewpoint was that these institutions were much more important than anything else. And so the really elite careers, the really elite process was you went and joined one of these institutions and then you stayed with that institution for your entire career. And that institution of course provided your pension, benefits, health care, all the rest of the stuff. And that was the old model. I do think the new model is better. It wasn't that the old model, you know, that was there because it had some effective good Darwinian adaptation selection. But the same thing has gotten to the new model. And the new model is that there are frequently some employees, some people who spend their life career, not just founders, but spend their life career with one company. But then there are a large number of other folks who can contribute Significantly, they aren't just itinerants, they aren't just tourists to the evolution of that company, but that it is actually on shorter timeframes. And part of the reason, as you know, Chris, the reason why we wrote the alliance is because we saw this trend because it's one of the places where Silicon Valley and China and other places are seeing this at the gale force winds before the other industries, seeing how industries are transformed. Because this is also more true of technology companies than other companies. But in fact, the trend is all companies are becoming technology companies. All companies have technology underlying how they offer their products, services, how they operate. And yes, a lot of the times it's I buy Microsoft Teams or Office, I use it. Absolutely. But then as a company gets more and more developed, it builds its technology to have a differential edge, a differential edge in how it measures its analytics, what its dashboard is, how it operates, how it onboards people, how it applies sensors to its product development, its supply chain, its awareness, its learning cycle for how it goes. And that's where the entire world is going. So that's part of the reason why we wrote the alliance is to say the whole world, even Japan, is moving towards this place where people have a job at this organization, then a job at that organization, a job at that organization. And we said, well, how should this change it? Because right now, of course, what happens is manager and employee essentially pretend at the moment that it's a lifetime job. And they pretend it for a number of reasons. One, it could be a lifetime job, but two, what happens for getting promotions and bonuses and so forth is involves your commitment to the organization. And so both of them, the manager doesn't want to be seeming like they're not going to presume that you're going to be here forever. And even though they're thinking they might not be here forever and you want to get your bonus and be promoted. So you're saying I'm going to be here forever even though you kind of know, look, probability is I'm not going to be here forever. But of course, one of the problems is in a relationship is once you have that kind of significant white lie where both people know that there's something significant that we're not talking about, where we're not being honest with each other about, then that bleeds into mistrust in everything else. And that means that I was. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is more of a transactional relationship. We lie to each other. Yep. That's the way it happens. And you know, you see this behavior in Managers and companies then say, oh yeah, I know I promised you this, that this division was gonna go somewhere and so forth, but we're laying it off and we're gone and it's over. Blah. I know I was talking about how well it was working, but it's not working. And so it's over. And so it's like, okay, mistrust on that side. And then similarly, you got employees who may be mission critical to certain projects that you're working on. So and so say, hey, I got something better. Here's my two weeks notice. You know, I'm gone. You know, I don't really have responsibility here. And that creates a really misfunctional relationship on both sides. And so the question, the alliance framework is to how to say, how to repropose that framework where you say, okay, what's the way that we could say, look, we're really seriously investing in each other. We have a basis of honesty and truth. And, and we are trying to maximize. We recognize that as a manager, I may be trying to say, no, I want you to stay here, I want you to get the bonus. I want you to be here lifetime. I want you to be here for multiple, as we describe it, tours of duty. And the employee might go, look, I'm totally open to being here for multiple tours of duty. That may be really great for me and so forth, but we're both honest about it, may or may not play out that way. And still, how do we set our OKRs, our KPIs, our objectives, and how do we manage that conversation with, while going through it? And central to the alliance was a proposal to think about it as a tour of duty framework where the tours of duties are broken into three rough categories. One may be foundational, which is, hey, we're now at that lifetime thing, we're planning on being here forever and so forth. And that's how we play. And you tend to get more closer to that, if not in it, as you become a stalwart in the organization, either an executive or as a key contributor or as a key cultural banner holder. And it tends to have to be recognized on both side. The Anchor 1 is a transformational tour of duty, which is you transform my career, I transform your business. And then there's a rotational tour of duty where there's sometimes where there's like, look, there's jobs where you kind of do it for two years, a I banking analyst or a consulting analyst. And that is, it's a two year job. And then you might come back or you might go to something else. And that's the cycle about how these things work. And there's proxies on rotational, which might be, you know, a Starbucks barista and all the rest. Now you say that's the backdrop of this. And what does that mean? Now in the time of COVID in the, oh my God, we have this tsunami, this asteroid, which has kind of smashed a bunch of retail businesses, smashed restaurants, smashed the travel industry. And there's going to be a fragmentation and a reconstitution of those, made major dents and transformations in a whole bunch of other industries and had a whole bunch of work patterns and customer demand patterns change. And what does that mean when you're in this? Now, part of the extra special importance of the alliance is say our commitment is not to lifetime employment as an employer. Our commitment is to trying to make you as employable as possible. That the return for good work is that we try to help you in your employability in your career, which may be with us, but maybe other places. And in return, you also say, hey, I recognize that I also have a lightweight lifetime relationship with this organization. And so I care about the organization even as I've moved on. It doesn't care about the organization the same way that I might be working 40 hours a week or more or less in this particular organization. And my primary loyalty is to my current employer. But those loyalties are not zero sum. They don't go, oh, I'm, you know, because I'm loyal to one doesn't mean I'm loyal to another. It's like saying I'm loyal to a sports team. One doesn't mean I'm not loyal to sports teams, too. I'm a native person from Houston and I'm living in New York. I may care about both Houston and New York as locations and as cities and so forth. So it isn't to say that we all have multiple loyalties and sometimes there's conflicts of them and we navigate them, but we have those loyalties. And so we say, okay, that's what we now seek. And so when you're an employer, you say, well, look, we're in these really terrible times. I have a responsibility to the business. I have to do a rif. I have to let go of employees. You have to do things like what Brian Chesky at Airbnb did, which is say, look, when I let go of employees in this, I try to do as much as possible to help them. I may say, look, I'll give you a really strong Reference, I will call, you know, five or 10 other places. It's just like, just have people call me. I'll tell you that they're a good reference. I'll try to make the severance package as good as possible. Brian said, look, we'll wave the cliff. Everyone can be an Airbnb shareholder, which is part of the reason why they came to work here. I may band together, like, if I'm like a restaurateur, I may say, look, I know other restaurateurs, and we'll all call each other and say, hey, look, what do you know that's helping your wait staff or other people? What are the things we could do to help there? I might be willing to provide a documentary letter that might help with the kind of equivalent of PPP loans and other kinds of things.

And.

And I'm going to do that because I recognize that my commitment is to ongoing employability. And by the way, you know, with the employees you really like, you might say, look, I'm hoping to reopen in the following way, and maybe I'll have a job opportunity for you then. And they may say, look, I found something. But because you've been helping me, even though I found something, like, I know sue or Fred who might be a good fit, I'll help connect them with you as the new person. And that's the kind of ongoing relationship that the alliance is to represent, which is to say that I recognize that it's not a lifetime employment relationship anymore, but it's a lifetime alliance which is committed the career side on the employee and the health side of the. And the. And the growth side of the business as the ongoing things, even as your primary employment may change kind of over time. And so that's what the kind of things for the employers to do. And obviously for the employees, the employers may not have read the alliance. They may not realize this. And so you also have a chance to say, hey, look, I get it that you're. That you may need to lay me off because of the business. That really hurts. You know, I feel risky, I feel scared, I'm uncertain. I don't know what's going on, and say, but like, hey, maybe we could still help each other this way, right? And if the employer, oh, yeah, great, yeah, I'd be happy to do that. It just may not have occurred to them. So you can propose it. And obviously, part of the dynamic that the alliance seeks to establish is to say, look, the wonderful thing about the world of business, about the world of capitalism, is it can Be a non zero sum game. And it's like, look, we're working out this way that a little bit of effort for me can make a big difference from you and a little bit for you can make a big difference for me. And that's how we make a lot more value in the system. And then obviously you prefer the people to whom you have that relationship. Right? So if you find out that your employer doesn't actually operate this way, doesn't really care about your career, it's like, well, actually, in fact, I really should have a different employer if I can. I should be working with someone who cares about this and likewise as the employees. And so those are the dynamics that you, you want to go through. Now, part of another underlying current in the alliance is that you essentially are sharing the pain. So the natural thing from being an employer is to say, well, I'm not going to you no visibility into what the future of your job looks like and everything else, because I really want you to work super, super hard. Even though I know that I'm going to close off this line of business in a ways, because I'm not really, I'm trying to milk every last drop of the value of the relationship and then not pay you any more for it. And then similar to the employee, which is, look, I'm going to work for you up until the next great job opportunity comes in. And the moment that comes in, I drop you like a hot stone and I move on to the next one. And that's what's absolutely best for me. Now that may be best for you in that transaction, but it's bad for you as a business culture, it's bad for you as a reputation, it's bad for you as a brand. And by the way, like, if I'm hiring an employee who said, look, I'm dropping the former employer like a hot stone, hey, I'm going to come work you. It's like, well, I wonder if we get around to where you're going to be dropping me like the hot stone too. That doesn't show you good character. So you want to show this in game theory, multi transactional thinking, that's kind of relationship thinking. This care about the people you have the relationships with. And you go, yeah, those are the people you want to work with and those are how you want to broadcast to each other. That's part of the, hey, I work on this framework called the Alliance. I read this book, I do this thing and this is how we become lifetime allies. And that's. It becomes more important in times of crisis, because then it matters a lot more and, you know, little nuances about how you see this applied currently is some businesses say, well, rather than doing a 20% layoff, we're going to do a 20% salary reduction and we're going to get everyone bought into that. And this is how we're expecting on that salary reduction. This is what we're doing. And we know we're taking a certain amount of risk with that in order to play that, but we play it that way or we do a 10% layoff and a 10% salary reduction. You know, these are the ways that we're navigating these really difficult times because this gets to the next thing is not just sharing the pain, like sharing the pain of, you know, adjustments between the employee's career and the business and how it plays. And like, we both contribute some to it and don't just maximize for ourselves. But the last really general principle that plays in here is transparency. Transparency and communication. We're open with each other, we're honest with each other. We don't just say, hey, you didn't ask, you didn't ask, so I didn't tell you. It's like, no, no, I am showing you that I care about your career. I'm showing you that I care about the stability, what's going on with you. So we are communicating about these things. And by the way, sometimes those communications are a little difficult, which is like, look, I don't know what next quarter is going to look like, but by the way, because I'm sitting here communicating with you honestly, you can then trust me that I will be continue to communicate with you honestly. And maybe you're going to give me a little bit of rain on that versus going and looking for that job and jumping immediately for how it plays. And so those are the kinds of things that you want to look at. And that's part of the reason why the alliance framework becomes even more important in times of crisis like the pandemic.

And when I think about the alliance, it really is all about that relationship thinking as you described. There's transparency, there's communication, there's transparency, trust, there's mutual investment. But it all boils down to how do you have a healthy relationship with someone else? And you need to apply those principles. And again, most of the time we apply them in our personal lives, but they can be applied to business as well. You've said many times when people say it's not personal, it's just business, they're Essentially saying, and therefore it's okay to be a psychopath.

Exactly.

That's not the way it goes. And so applying the alliance is really like applying that kind of relationship thinking. And as you point out, it's even more important because relationships are the most.

Important during those tough times, and they have the strongest chances to be forged. Like, one of the benefits in a relationship is when you go through a crisis, like, say, Chris and I have a disagreement, that disagreement is some emotional ferociousness. The goodness about the crisis is that's an opportunity to also be closer. Because when we work through it and we go, okay, wait, one of us thought the other one is misbehaving, or we miss line interest, and we were skeptical, but yet we went through it and we go, oh, well, now we trust each other better. And why is it reasonable we trust each other better? Well, we see that we can deal with conflict. We see that we sorted through it. We shared the pain. We were honest with each other. We were committed to the future of how we work together. Well, that same thing is true for facing crises from the outside as well. Like in this crisis, where it could be they, well, what's good for me? And I don't care about you. Like, you're off the lifeboat. I don't care. I was like, no, no, no. I care about both of us being in lifeboat, and I'm trying to work on it now. You know, it's very natural that people say, well, I care a little bit more about me being in the lifeboat than you. And so if it really came down to me or you, you know, I'm going to put me in the lifeboat. That's a very natural human response, other than people that they're super close to family and close friends and other folks or, you know, saints. But it's like, actually. But what I really care about is that we're both in the lifeboat, and I'm willing to take some pain and suffering to make sure you're in the lifeboat too. And so those kinds of things as a response to the outside crisis is a really good proof point to show that you are a strong ally and friend and kind of colleague in life to go through the rest of our work, life and life together.

There was a fascinating bit of scholarly research that my friend, Professor Jennifer Aker at Stanford pointed me to that showed that if you looked at when people felt like they had had the most meaning in their lives, like what days drove meaning, that days where there was social conflict actually tended to drive greater meaning. That conflict, that little Bit of adversity does absolutely drive meaning, just as you were saying. And I'm reminded of the story of another company, Gravity Payments. It became very well known a number of years ago because its CEO took a pay cut so that everyone in the company could make at least least $70,000 because that was the amount of money that beyond which science tells us it tends not to affect happiness. Well, guess what, they're a payments company. And so they experience some issues with the pandemic and they had revenue shortfalls. And this same CEO was looking and saying, oh my goodness, I'm going to have to cut 20% of my staff. How are we going to manage this? And he was feeling terrible about it. And what he did, which is so important is he went to the team and said, here's the situation, here's what's happened to our revenues, here's our cash reserves. What should we do? And what they ended up doing is different members of the organization volunteered to take pay reductions. And there were enough volunteers and enough pay reductions, they were able to perform zero layoffs and still meet the financial targets they needed to make. And that's a great example of how allies can really work together on the management side and the employee side to respond to something like this pandemic 100%. Now, one of the things that has come out of the pandemic is there's also another player involved. In this case, it's the government. And some of the government programs that have come down to try to help companies include things like the CARES act and the paycheck protection program. And many companies have participated. Not as many as all the ones who wanted to, but certainly many companies have participated. They've gotten these forgivable loans that they can use to rehire their laid off employees. This is almost like a second chance. How should leaders think about using the principles of the alliance as they rehire these employees as they take advantage of things like ppp?

So one of the virtues of taking an alliance approach to things, which is to say even if we're doing a reduction in force, even if we're doing furloughing, look what we view this to be as a lifetime relationship where we in ways continue to invest in your employability and care about that, and then you continue to invest in the health and growth of the business, which might be referrals to other employees or other kinds of things as a way of doing this, and it goes much more lightweight when we're not in a direct employee economic relationship. It might be still something There when it's an employee relationship that's being furloughed. But when you approach it, then the people go, okay, great, you're being straight with me, you're trying to help me, showing it. And so what that means of course is you say, okay, well if you then come back to them, say for example, you did a furlough and you come back and say, I got this PPE program and I want to rehire you, people go, okay, great, you've been honest with me and I know they'll be honest with you in the future, so it's okay for me to come back. Whereas if you haven't, they may come back because they're like, well, you know, it's may and I don't have a job, so I'll come back. But boy, if another job comes along, you know, I'd rather be on that because I'd rather be working with someone who is, who's looking out for me, who's honest with me, who's transparent with me, et cetera. And so that's part of how the alliance can help in that circumstance. And then obviously within the details of what the government's looking for in the PPP program, what they'll be looking for in audits, what they'll be looking for in seeing it, is that you actually in fact are trying to extend the employability to other Americans as much as possible. And so if you're taking a PPP loan and you're not trying to maximize within the confrance of what your business can successfully maintain, the employment of your people, then the government's going to be pretty unhappy with you, right, as a recipient of the PPP loan. And you know, look, it may be legal, but we all have to think of ourselves as moral and hero responsibility here too. And there's a what is the point of this? What is the exercise of this? And so, for example, like when you say, hey, here's a food bank problem for families that are in need to say, well I'm a wealthy family, I'm going to go take the food bank because it's there for free for everyone who's like, no, no, you shouldn't do that, even though it might be legal for you to do that, you shouldn't do that because that's the wrong moral thing to do. And so there's also, as leaders here within the PPP environment, you want to be thinking about the morality of your leadership. And of course that plays into your ultimate long term success of business. You know, people who want to work with you, the culture of your business, a bunch of other things will then all flow from that as well.

And thinking about something like ppp, again, very important that the government has put in place programs like this. We absolutely should be trying to maintain these organizations, give them an opportunity to get through this and be able to reconstitute themselves instead of scattering everyone to the winds. But PPP is really just the economic element of it. I think what you're pointing out is the emotional side of it. So important. Yes. Not every employee who's hired back via PPP is created equal. The ones who come back, they're like, hey, you screwed me. I'll come back now. Because you have a paycheck, that's a temporary thing. The ones where you were honest all along, you said, now we've been able to apply for this. Just like I said, we've gotten it now. Now I can hire you back. That's adversity. That actually strengthens that relationship because the emotional component was there.

Exactly. And that's again, part of the thing we were talking about earlier is like going through crises successfully together strengthens relationships, which is valuable in all kinds of ways. I mean, everything from commitment to the business work ethic, willingness to refer other people in, et cetera. And then the undercutting of that is the reverse.

I'm reminded of the great movie Apollo 13, when Ed Harris, who's playing NASA's Gene Kranz, says, gentlemen, I believe this will be our finest hour. And this is an opportunity for people to make this their finest hour as managers.

Yep, exactly. It's another application of also the principle of with crisis, there is always opportunity. And so you try to figure out how to convert the crisis into an opportunity. Even if it's a crisis you wouldn't choose. Even if it's an asteroid is hit your entire industry, not something you would prefer. It's painful, It's a disaster. You still say, look, as playing for the future. I convert it into an opportunity and I play for it.

Now, it seems like this is probably easier for companies where their employees can work from home because those operations have been less disruptive. We are recording a podcast right now, even though we're physically separated thanks to the power of technology. But that doesn't work for every company. So how about companies where people have to be there in person? How is this different for them?

Well, so typically in a normal non pandemic thing, a lot of your alliance is kind of responsibilities around what is your career path, what is the Question of compensation, nature of the job, these kinds of things, what is the future of the business? And then all of a sudden you now have this, okay, well, what's your physical health? Where are you at risk? How are you navigating your family where there's a lot more intense stress? Children at home, et cetera, need to be navigating. What additional risks are you putting on your workers as they come to work? And then how does this all fit within society? Are you being responsible about what may be the spread of the pandemic within society and what does this all mean? And so you go, okay, well, you always have to be human first. And so you go, okay, well, you know what, what are the actual risks here for people, their families and so forth? So we're like, we have a grocery store, we have to work here, we're first responders, we have to work here. Okay, so how do I get masks and what do I do with masks? What do we do? Social distancing, you know, like what we've already seen happen in a lot of stores is they say, okay, well, we're going to create disease walls. Like, like for example, grocery stores or Costco's. Certain number of people in the store will have a, you know, this is all the kind of innovations, you see, we'll have, like each aisle is unidirectional now so people can keep a certain amount of social distancing. Our employees will have a thermometer check when they come in. We'll have, you know, washing the hands. We'll have very, like, we'll make sure that we get PPE equipment for them. And you, will you do all that as just a baseline? You say, look, this is what's important for society, this is what's important for humanity. We're going to do this. We're not going to say, oh, look, it's herd immunity, you know, you'll be fine, you might catch it or not. It's like, no, no, no, we're going to do all this stuff. And obviously, if one does catch it, you try to be as proactive as possible, both as a business and individual. Say, look, if you've taken your temperature at home and don't come in saying, hey, I've got it, great, you know, we'll continue to pay you see how it goes, you know, work that out. Those are all kinds of how you do the in person work of it. And so I think that's the kind of thing that you do when you do it. And then you reconfigure your work, your delivery, your product or service as maximum as possible. And what you're really focused on is, look, can I get the business through these really difficult times? Can I be in a business that. Where you can adapt to whatever the new normal is, and then can I go into the new normal and can I have my relationship with my employees where they are helping me with that? We are working together on that, and we are working as allies on that. And that's essentially the principle.

Now, a fortunate minority of companies have actually seen their business accelerate during this pandemic. I'm thinking of communication apps like Discord. I know my own son uses it like, 10 hours a day. There's productivity platforms like Coda. You mentioned, for example, that Airbnb used that to record the list of employees so that people can hire them. Video gaming platforms like Roblox have seen record usage. But while this increase in demand is definitely a good problem to have, it can still be a problem, right? Servers are melting down, people are working long hours. What does the alliance tell us about how to manage this surge, which could potentially be temporary? I mean, I think we both agree that it's probably going to last for months, but it's not going to last the rest of our lives. So how do you manage that kind of tension?

So part of the alliance is to say, let's be transparent and allies with each other to transform both your career and also the business. And so, roughly, in this kind of surge, you can look at it as two groups. You go, okay, there's a bunch of people here who are already working here, who are now going to be intensely stressed, but people we may be hiring in, who are in the similar kind of bucket of like, okay, they're helping us with this and they're going to be continuing. And that's all in the. You're going to work really hard for building the business. And the same principle apply to the two groups. And the other one might be is people you may hire in as temporary or as contractors. Right. In order to kind of get you through this. And in both cases, the central compact of the alliance matters, which is, look, we're going to be doing this particularly intense period of work. Here's how it benefits your career, here's how it benefits us, and here's our OKRs, our KPIs, here's how we're going to do them together. Let's go now. In the anticipated ongoing future work, folks, look, I know that it's a particularly stressful time. You're probably Working from home. Your kids are at home everywhere else, but you need to throw in the afterburners. And so we'll try to help you, right, in various ways. Like we don't mind if your kid's sitting in your lap while you're in the meeting call and having this or that kind of thing. Or hey, look, you have to go and be parent on call during certain things. But then after your kid's gone to sleep, that's when you're doing some of the work, these kinds of things to throw in the afterburners. And we know that that's the case and we're going to try to configure the work to make that happen. But we need you to step up, be intense while it's happening, because we're seeing this great opportunity. And by the way, in Silicon Valley companies, this is one of the great innovations of how Silicon Valley companies work is everybody gets stock options and receptionists get stock options, et cetera. So it's like this will be reflected in the value of your stock options. That's one of the classic things that Silicon Valley tech companies are saying as part of this. But if you don't have them, you should be reflecting some way of saying, look, your intensity in this helps you in the following way. And it shouldn't just be like, well, it's a great company, you have a job here. You should do something to recognize that kind of intensity and kind of ongoing. And that's the bucket of the people who are like, well, yeah, you're going to strain extra hard right now, outside of a normal whatever here counts as normal employee relationship. And that's great. Then there's another group. You say, look, we're bringing you on board to help and we don't know if we're going to have a job for you. Now obviously, frequently one of the things that happens is contract to hire, which is like, hey, if you're really spectacular here, we will give you a job, right? And that will be one of the rewards of showing yourself during this intense time. That's a totally time honored, great way of doing it. Not being exploitative, being clear, those are super important there. It's also, I think, important to say, look, we're going to hire like say 100 of you and 20 of you are going to give jobs. 80 of you are not going to get jobs. But the 80 of you are not going to get jobs. Look, if you do well, here will be a happy reference, will be a, oh, a person really kicked ass and well, they can refer to it. You could put this on your CV, your LinkedIn profile as a way of doing this. And we will continue to try to help you even if it's not an ongoing job here. We may even kind of say, hey, we paid someone to do a little bit of work where people who did this kind of work with us where else they might find jobs. And so we pointed you out a few companies in order to make it helpful to you. We may even establish a channel to those company's recruiting arms in order to do that because it makes sense for us because we've got 80 of you and makes sense for us to do a little bit of investment to make that pattern happen. And so even in the kind of the temporary workers or the contractors is to say, hey, we will help with that too. And of course that then also then creates that similar bond of trust and understanding even in a temporary, what for us would be a very short rotational term of duty, which would be the term from the alliance even in that would play out well. And I think those are some patterns and frameworks to look at for those companies that are fortunate where the pandemic creates a massive tidal wave in their direction, a gale force wind behind them and that part of their work is keeping up with all of the great things that are happening in their business.

And thinking about the alliance that way really does boil down to going beyond the monetary because you described it. Yes, there's a monetary element. There's surge hiring, there's an opportunity for people to make money and to get a job right now, even if it's temporary. But there's all the non monetary elements of it. There's the reputational benefit of having worked for this company, especially during this time when so much attention is being drawn to the company. There's the fact that the person is now on the inside and people are getting a chance to experience working with them. They're building individual relationships. They become much more known to the organization. Of course you have a leg up in becoming a permanent hire if anyone's going to become a permanent hire. Because now you're known to the organization, you're an alumnus of the organization. And then finally, of course there's just the notion of it's still accelerating the career. It's delivering that key thing that the alliance is all about, which is helping the individual employee really accelerate their career. And when you frame it that way, it really seems like it is a great opportunity if those non monetary elements are a part of the equation.

Exactly. And that's part of the reason why that matters a lot to people. It matters a lot to people for happiness and where they're working. It matters a lot to people for like, you know, to some degree. The maxim is, of course with a job you're much closer to your. Your cost line. So it really matters stability and so forth. But. But like, what is your next job is a super important part of the progress of a career. And your next job may be just a promotion or a salary increase in the current job, but that's the cycle up which you kind of take as a invest in yourself. You know, just like, you know, my first book, the Startup of youf, is like looking at yourself as an entrepreneurial business and how you go through those cycles.

Now, finally, both you and I are known as inveterate optimists. So we believe medical science is going to find a way to ease the strain of the pandemic. There's going to be treatments, hopefully there'll be a vaccine. We don't know exactly when, but we know it will eventually come. When that day comes and business starts to fall into the new normal, how can managers and leaders apply the principles of the alliance during that recovery period as they're trying to ramp up their team as quickly as possible to take advantage of the fact that all of a sudden we fly finally been released.

Ultimately, the alliance is you have to set it in your culture. Part of how your culture evolves is how you're bringing in, you know, a combination of how you talk to your current folks and how you bring in new folks. Now I tend to think of the. One of the underlying ideas the alliance is very good, is like a parallel. The stock market is like when you hold a stock, you're rebuying it. And it's like as you have employees going through tours of duty, you're rehiring them. You should have the same kind of energy and enthusiasm and positivity rehiring them as you do hiring them. You know, this is the flip side of the Reed Hastings comment of like, anyone who you wouldn't fight to keep, you should give a generous severance package and say, hey, good luck to you. You know, like on your way. It's like, actually, in fact, you should have that same, like, energy of rehiring and you should have that as kind of the baseline. And that's part of what the alliance is, is that energy of approaching everything as a rehire and, and as you get to kind of what business in the future is going to look like the chance to Establish that to set as the new norm to bring in people in that way, to understand, have them understand that you're not just bringing them in because you're absolutely bringing them in to help transform your business, full stop, no exceptions. But it's not just that. You're also saying, hey, look, as part of this, it's career transformative to you. And that's the reason why you should work so hard. That's the reason why you should be mission aligned with us in addition to loving our mission. And that's the reason why you may end up being a lifetime lover of being part of this theme. Because we're also committed to you, we're also committed to your growth. And we're not just committed to your growth as long as it's good for us, we're committed to you to transform you the way you're transforming our business as well. And that kind of thing, that as people get back to the new business and have come out of the trauma, the uncertainties, you know, the level of fear and uncertainty, that's the, oh, shit, you know, like someone who's lost a job or an industry has collapsed, everything else that creates a lot of fear and uncertainty, that kind of thing goes, ah, great, I now know that you're investing in my stability and my ongoing progress too. And that really matters. And so therefore we have a deep bond of trust. And so the application of the alliance, not just through the pandemic, but through the whenever we get to the regrowth period, will be super important.

And so we've heard today about how the alliance really relates to and is so important during this pandemic, a pandemic which has caused millions in job losses, put people in fear and uncertainty with the alliance, with that emphasis on the lifelong relationship, even if it's not an employment relationship, between allies, with its focus on the non monetary aspects, the career advancement, the mutual trust and honesty and communication, the investment, it really feels like the time for the alliance is now, that the ideas are so timely as people are attempting to manage the transition with employees that they may have to lay off or furlough, the employees who are there, who are left behind, and the employees at those companies that are lucky enough to be growing. So I'm really glad we had a chance to have this conversation today. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule, Reid.

Likewise, Chris. And thank you to all of our listeners. Hopefully that amidst all of the various points, there's at least a gem or two that will be useful to how we operate in the future.

For Reid Hoffman and the Gray Matter Podcast, I'm Chris Yeh and thank you for listening.